Part 1

Read Passage A carefully, and then answer Questions 1 and 2.

Passage A

In this extract Redmond O’Hanlon describes a journey into the jungle by canoe. James, a poet, has
been eventually persuaded to accompany Redmond.

Into the heart of Borneo

At midday we climbed into our dugout canoe and set off up-river towards the interior. After about ten
miles the fields gave way to well-established secondary forest, and then the primeval jungle began.

The river seemed to close in on us: the 60-metre-high trees crowded down the slopes of the hills,
almost to the water’s edge, an apparently endless chaos of different species of tree, every kind of
green, even under the uniform glare of a tropical sun. Parasitic growths sprouted everywhere, ferns
fanned out from every angle in the branches, creepers as thick as legs gripped each other and tangled
down to the surface of the water, their tips twining down in the current like river-weed.

The river itself began to twist and turn too, the banks behind us appearing to merge together into one
vast and impenetrable thicket, shutting us in from behind. At the same time, the trees ahead stepped
aside a meagre pace or two to let the river swirl down ahead. The outboard motor set on a wooden
frame at the stern of the canoe pushed us past foaming little tributaries, islets, shingle banks strewn
with huge rounded boulders, half hidden coves scooped round by whirlpools. Here the river was clear,
deep green from the reflection of the trees. We really were voyaging upriver! I thought it was an optical
illusion, but the canoe was actually climbing up a volume of water great enough to sustain an almost
constant angle of ascent, even on the stretches of water between the jagged steps of the rapids.

We stopped by a pile of driftwood to hide a drum of petrol to be retrieved a few days later on the return
journey. A monitor lizard, reared up on its front legs, watched us for a moment with its dinosauric eyes
and then scuttled away between the broken branches. A Brahminy kite, flying low enough for us to
hear the rush of air through the primary feathers of its wings, circled overhead watching us, its flecked-
brown belly white in the sun. Then the bird soared away, mewing its shrill call.

Further up, the rapids became more frequent and more turbulent and, at each one, heavy waves of
water would crash over and into the boat. James, sitting opposite me on the boards in the centre of the
canoe and facing upstream, was reading his way through the poems of the 18th century writer Swift, a
straw boater on his bald head, his white shirt buttoned at the neck and at the wrists.

‘Some of these poems are pretty feeble,’ James would mutter, displeased.

‘Quite so, but – er – James?’

‘Yes?’

‘Rapid 583/2, Green Heave, strength six-out-of-ten, is approaching.’

With a second or two to spare, James would shut his book, mark his place with a twig, slip it neatly
under the edge of the tarpaulin, sit on it, shut his eyes, get drenched, open his eyes, squeeze the water
from his beard with his right hand, retrieve his book and carry on reading.

Every 450 metres or so, a lesser fish-eagle would regard us with its yellow eye, flying off only as we
drew almost level, flapping gently just ahead of the canoe to the limit of its territory.
James, his huge head laid back on the hump of our kit under the tarpaulin, was having one of his five-
minute snoozes. The vein on his right temple was throbbing, a sure sign that his brain was awash with
extra dissolved oxygen, and that some piece of programming, vital to the production of a future poem,
was in progress.

‘James!’

An eye opened.

‘What is it?’

‘Just this – if you do see a log floating upriver, let me know.’

‘Crocodiles?’

‘Well, not the one that attacks you. Not up here. But an old book I read said we might see the freshwater
species. The four-and-a-half-metre one with the one-and-a-half-metre snout and all those teeth.’

‘Really, Redmond,’ said James, raising himself on an elbow and looking about, ‘you’re absurd!’

1 Imagine that you are James. Write an entry in your journal, intended to be read by members of
your family when you get home.

In your journal entry you should:

• explain how you feel in this environment

• comment on your relationship with Redmond
• express your thoughts about the next few days of this adventure.

Base your journal on what you have read in Passage A. Be careful to use your own words.

Begin your journal entry: ‘Sometimes, I wonder what I’m doing here…’.

Write between 1½ and 2 sides, allowing for the size of your handwriting.

Up to 15 marks are available for the content of your answer, and up to 5 marks for the
quality of your writing.

[Total: 20]

2 Re-read the descriptions of:

(a) the trees and the undergrowth in paragraph 2, beginning ‘The river seemed …’;

(b) the monitor lizard and the Brahminy kite in paragraph 4, beginning ‘We stopped by …’.

Select words and phrases from these descriptions, and explain how the writer has created effects
by using this language.

[Total: 10]